Psychopath: Thinking Outside the Box
by xinde
Summary: Beyond Birthday takes the psychopath test and gives some rather unexpected answers. No worms were harmed in the making of this fic. One-shot.


**Psychopath: Thinking Outside the Box**

**A/N: **This fic was inspired by reading about questions that psychopaths supposedly answer differently from normal people. Everyone knows the one about the woman at her mother's funeral, right? If you don't, it will be spoiled for you. Be warned, what you are about to read contains some rather flippant commentary on murder and death. If this offends you, do not read! It's really not that horrific…just darkly humorous…kind of.

* * *

"B! Come here, I want to ask you something!"

Beyond looked up from the earthworm he was quartering and saw A standing in the doorway of the chemistry lab.

(Beyond was in the chemistry lab with an earthworm because he wanted to assess the worm's regenerative capacities when doused in different substances.)

"What?" Beyond said lazily, more interested in his worm.

A took a seat next to Beyond and pretended not to notice his dissection in progress. "So I was surfing the web* and I found some interesting psychopath questions. I tried to answer them myself, but I didn't get any of them right. Do you wanna try?"

"Ask away."

"Ok, the first one went like this: a woman is at her mother's funeral, and she meets this fabulous man and falls in love with him. But she's a forgetful bimbo and doesn't ask for his name or contact info or anything, and she's sad that she'll never meet him again. Two days later, she kills her sister. What's her motive?"

Beyond focused on slicing the worm as evenly as possible and answered without missing a beat, "The man was her mother's murderer, and she wanted to prove her worth to him by murdering someone as well."

A gaped. It would be the first of many times that afternoon.

"That's…ok, that's not what it said online! The woman killed her sister because she thought she would meet the man again at her sister's funeral."

"Hm…that is a possibility as well. However, I calculate that my hypothesis is 86% more likely."

"Ok…" A said nervously, seeming to be reconsidering his decision of testing B. "Well, how about this one: you're up on a balcony in a high-rise at night, and you see someone being murdered on the street below. The murderer looks up and makes a ticking gesture towards you with his index finger. What is he trying to do?"

Beyond had finished slicing the worm and dropped the four sections into separate test tubes. "How was the victim murdered?" he asked.

"I…I don't know, it didn't say."

"It is a necessary condition for the conclusion to proceed."

"Fine, say the victim was…clubbed in the head."

"The murderer would be counting how may floors it would take for someone to fall and sustain head injuries as extensive as those of the victim. Then the murderer would set up evidence on the corresponding floor to make it seem as if the victim accidentally fell."

A's eyes were very round and wide at the shocking thoroughness of B's reasoning. "That's kind of similar to the answer," he said weakly. "The given answer was that the murderer was counting what floor the witness was on so he could go up and kill him."

"That is reasonable," Beyond conceded. "I hadn't given much thought as to the role of the witness in the scenario. On second thought, the murderer might have been using the abstract abacus method to perform calculations to work out how much longer the witness's life would last. This is based on the assumption that the murderer possesses the shinigami eyes."

A _was _considered a genius normally on a par with B, but this time, he was completely baffled.

"Moving on," he said, wringing his hands together as if trying to gather the resolve to finish the barrage of questions he had prepared. "A boy receives a football and a bike from his great-uncle for Christmas, but he doesn't like them. Why?"

Beyond had begun to stew the worm sections in a mixture of different acids. "This would be because his parents were killed when they were trying to retrieve a football he was playing with. The football had rolled into the street, and a bicyclist rode past, knocking them into oncoming traffic and resulting in their deaths. Thus, the boy has no parents to give him presents and lives with a senile great-uncle who does not remember the unpleasant memories associated with those objects."

A shuddered, both because of the morbidity of the reason B had proposed and the complete nonchalance with which B had discussed the 'unpleasant memories.'

"Um, the simpler explanation is that the kid has no legs, so he can't use the presents."

"What nonsense," Beyond declared, observing the worm solutions bubbling. "He could trade presents with other children, or else steal more enjoyable presents for himself. How foolish to wallow in his own disability."

A had long since begun to realize the true nature of his friend (a very loosely designated term, indeed). However, he was determined to uncover the degree to which B was deranged using as comprehensive a test as possible. So with a flourish, A pulled from his pocket a set of ten cards with ink blots on them. He was surprised to see B glance at the cards and smile creepily.

"Rorschach? I've always wanted to try those."

A noted that B spoke as if the Rorschach ink blots were a type of very delicious candy.

"Well, let's see," Beyond examined the first card intently. "This looks like a blob of jam."

A frowned. It certainly did not resemble jam in any way.

"When turned upside down…it also looks like a blob of jam."

A wasn't sure what to say. Beyond moved on without his prompting.

"This one…also looks like a blob of jam."

A was willing to predict that all of the cards would look like blobs of jam to B.

"Next…blob of jam…hm, this one looks like particularly well made strawberry jam…this one might be blueberry, because the chunks are more homogeneous. This one I think…even such a connoisseur as I can only guess that it's a toss-up between marmalade and peach jam. Mmhm…peach jam…strawberry…strawberry, strawberry, strawberry…oh, this one looks like squashed brain matter!"

A jumped out of his seat and backed away from the table, not because he was repulsed by B (although he slightly was), but because one of B's acid worms had bubbled out of its tube and was oozing over the table.

"Oh dear," Beyond said sardonically, reaching for some sodium bicarbonate to neutralize the acid. "So, what do my responses tell you about me?"

_That you like jam…and brain matter, probably in the same spoonful, ugh._

"Well, technically you're not a psychopath, because you didn't give any of the expected answers."

"Oh, that is lovely news."

"But…your answers are still pretty disturbing."

"Well deduced, A," Beyond said. His eyes flickered inexplicably to the space above A's head. "By the way, what is your height and weight?"

"Is that a psychopath question of your own?" A asked suspiciously.

"In a sense."

"Will I be a psychopath if I tell the truth?"

"Perhaps."

"Well, I don't see how I can be a psychopath if I'm 165 cm and 51 kg."

"Indeed. Would you like to see if worms decompose better in hydroiodic acid or _p-_toluene sulfonic acid?"

"Neither," A squeaked and hastily fled the room.

"Silly boy," Beyond remarked to what was left of the worm. "He didn't need to see to know that hydroiodic acid is stronger and would break you down faster."

He thought about the numbers A had given him, both explicitly and implicitly. 165 and 51 were fairly normal, but the other set was tragically short. Beyond smiled even more creepily. Truly, A would allow him to move above and _beyond._

One morning two weeks later, A was found dead in the chemistry lab, hanging from a rope threaded through a high window above the door and tied to the newel post of the steps outside. There was no sign of a struggle, and the coroner was about to record the cause of death as suicide when it was found that B had disappeared.

* * *

Notes:

* This story takes place in 2002, when the internet was young and terms such as 'surfing the web' were not yet hopelessly outdated.

Review or B will unleash his acid worms on you! _(I'm not insane…)_


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